Brain Surgery

On February 9th, my dad is having brain surgery at Stanford for his Parkinson Disease. They're going to implant 2 electrodes deep into his brain, and those electrodes will be attached to wires leading to two battery packs that will be put into the spaces behind his colar bones a week later. The shaking and stiffness caused by his Parkinson's is from a deficiency of dopamine in the brain, which in turn causes electrons (neurons? I don't remember a thing from biology class) in his brain to fire randomly and cause shaking. The electrodes implanted will shoot off their own "electricity" which will keep these electrons/neurons from firing at all, hopefully stopping or minimizing the tremors. It's all just wild stuff, but apparently it's a surgery that's been done thousands of times at this point.

Dad is nervous, hopefull, scared, really wanting it to give him some relief from an illness he's had for over 20 years. He's attaching a lot to this - I guess I would be too - and that makes me worry a little. I hope he isn't disappointed. He wants to play tennis again... not sure if that's wishful thinking or not, but I guess it's a good sign that he wants to be more active.

He's been sober for over 3 months, which I guess is a good thing. It's going to take a few years of sobriety before I take it more seriously. But it's nice to see him clear these days. He's still old, though - the Parkinson's and the addiction have taken their toll on his 63 year old body. He looks like he could be a bit older.

Brain surgery... weird. I looked at him last week and saw his very young self, saw him as a boy, and thought, "Could he ever have imagined when he was a boy that at 63 he'd have brain surgery?" He looked vulnerable to me. I hope he still believes in God.